Flyers make a point in shootout loss to Bruins

Boston’s Jarome Iginla, right, and David Krejci collide with the Flyers’ Zac Rinaldo (36) and linesman Greg Devorski (54) during the first period of Sunday’s game at the Wells Fargo Center. The Flyers tied the game in the last minute, but lost in a shootout. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers took 52 shots on goal, rallied to force overtime in the final 24.1 seconds and grabbed what should be an important late-season standings point Sunday, all before losing, 4-3, to the Boston Bruins in a shootout.

As one locker room conversation went spinning afterward, it almost felt like a victory.

Yes? Maybe? A little bit?

“No,” Steve Mason said.

Never mind.

Despite two goals from new fourth-line centerman Vinny Lecavalier and an impressive rally to force overtime against the team with the NHL’s best record, the Flyers would lose for the third time in four games when Reilly Smith solved Mason in the fifth round of the shootout, won by the Bruins, 2-1.

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The other angle, the one some Flyers accepted, was that they have collected three points over their last two games, giving them 86 and pulling them even with the Rangers in the Metro Division, that with a game in hand. They would also settle for whatever satisfaction they could from knowing that the last time the Bruins were in the Wells Fargo Center, the final score was 6-1, Boston.

They were small achievements, but they were important ones, too, with the postseason picture beginning to gain clarity.

“It was playoff hockey,” Craig Berube said. “We need the points. So we’re going after it. The Bruins are a very good team. They are obviously in the playoffs, but they are fighting for first place and other things. So it was a competitive game.”

The Flyers wasted one massive opportunity for control, yet did take advantage of another. Down, 3-2, early in the third, they were 13 seconds into a power play when Zdeno Chara flipped a clearing attempt over the glass for a delay-of-game penalty. That gave the Flyers 1:53 of a 5-on-3 advantage, during which the Bruins’ defense hardened around goalie Tuukka Rask.

“We did not have enough shots,” Berube said of the flubbed bonus chance. “Basically, that was it. I thought we were passing it around too much. We weren’t shooting it.

But in the final minute, with Mason pulled for the extra skater, Jake Voracek found Lecavalier unattended to the left of Rask. Lecavalier easily pumped his 401st career goal into the net, Rask without much chance to challenge.

The Flyers would take eight of the nine shots in overtime, then five attempts in the shootout. Only Claude Giroux would solve Rask, with Lecavalier, Michael Raffl, Matt Read and Voracek repelled.

That left the Flyers to be satisfied with taking 17 of the 23 shots in the third period — an endearing if dangerous trait of theirs throughout a season down to its final eight games.

“It’s desperation,” Scott Hartnell said. “Guys are laying their bodies on the line, taking some hits to make plays, the little things that. I think you need to be successful in the regular season and if keep you playing that way in the playoffs you’ll do all right as well. I think it was a big effort by everyone.

“It’s just too bad we couldn’t get that extra point in the shootout.”

Lecavalier, freed from the left wing and centering Adam Hall and Zac Rinaldo, gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead at 5:25 of the first. But Andrej Meszaros, acquired by Boston from the Flyers around the trade deadline, answered at 10:43.

Taking a pass from Voracek and skating in on Rask, Kimmo Timonen scored with 52 seconds left in the first. But Chara scored 11 seconds into a second-period Boston power play, before Patrice Bergeron gave the Bruins their 3-2 lead.

“He wasn’t looking at the net when he shot it, and I was already down,” said Mason of the Bergeron goal. “When he got out to a certain point, I started getting back up, and as I was getting back up he shot the puck, and I wasn’t able to get back down in time. But that’s a save I’ve got to make.”

Mason made three stops in the shootout, but was beaten by Bergeron and Smith, the Bruins winning for the 15th time in their last 16 games.

With that, the Flyers were forced into rationalizations as they began preparations for a Tuesday visit to the St. Louis Blues.

“At this time of year sometimes the result doesn’t matter as much as how you feel as a team and how you played as a team,” Giroux said. “And I think we’re pretty happy with how we played.

“Obviously we wanted that other point, at the end of the day we’re pretty happy with the effort.”